Assam coal miners: Bodies of all nine trapped in Dima Hasao quarry found

The decomposed bodies of three more miners, trapped in a coal mine in Assam's Dima Hasao district have been recovered, 44 days after they went missing in the quarry, an official said on 20 February, Thursday.

The bodies were recovered late on Wednesday evening, while two bodies were retrieved earlier in the day.

With this recovery, all the nine miners who had been trapped there on 6 January have been found.

A dewatering operation in the mine at Umrangshu has been continuing for over one month and was completed on Wednesday to a level where retrieval operations could be launched.

The highly decomposed corpses were spotted by the divers who went in and brought them out.

The bodies are yet to be identified and the process to do so has been initiated, the official said.

Nine workers were trapped inside the mine on 6 January and the body of one was recovered two days later, while those of three others were found on 11 January.

An ex gratia payment of Rs 10 lakh each has been paid by the government to the next of kin of the four miners whose bodies were recovered earlier and Rs 6 lakh each to the family of those trapped inside.

The state government had announced that the families of all trapped inside the mine would be paid a total of Rs 10 lakh each.

The chief minister had earlier claimed that the mine was abandoned 12 years ago and was under the Assam Mineral Development Corporation till three years ago.

The state government has also announced a judicial enquiry into the incident, with retired high court judge Anima Hazarika heading the one-person committee.